All The Conversations Held In The Dark
by Titanium Flower
Summary: The air is heavy. Thick and stagnant with silence, it festers in the darkness, twisting sharply somewhere in her stomach. Kaoru heaves a sigh which sounds twenty years too old. It is the first audible noise he has made in hours.


The air is heavy.

Thick and stagnant with silence, it festers in the darkness, twisting sharply somewhere in her stomach.

Kaoru heaves a sigh which sounds twenty years too old. It is the first audible noise he has made in hours.

His hand, which had been lax in her own, squeezes gently. Automatically, she flicks her gaze to his face. He's sprawled out on the futon next to her, and the wan moonlight filtering through the blinds casts haunting shadows across his face. "Do you think Hikaru is happy?" He asks, barely louder than a whisper.

She squeezes back. The lump in her throat makes it hard to talk.

She isn't even sure whether she wants to speak, actually.

Part of her wants to lie, and say that it's hard to remember when the two were close. But in her memory, there was never a time where they weren't arm in arm, heads bowed together as they plotted new ways to shake up the mundane, tailor-pressed, checklist lives of their friends with their laughter and disorder, to turn mere surviving into living.

One of the many goals of the Hitachiin twins were to make sure their friends enjoyed life as much as they did.

But now there's a sour taste on her tongue, and Hikaru's absence aches deep inside her chest. It feels like a missing puzzle piece; the unfinished note in a song somebody wrote for them, a name on the tip of a tongue that nobody was willing to say.

"I hope so." Haruhi replies, and her throat feels far too tight.

Back when the wounds were too fresh, when they collapsed into one another to even summon the energy to keep going, they would fabricate all the adventures Hikaru had experienced without them. Muse between themselves during the sleepy hours of early morning about what journies lay ahead him. Laugh, because silly Hikaru with his forgetfulness and passion for life hadn't texted again, but they were sure he would soon, and then he'd recount every twist and turn along the way.

It was make-believe.

But the two of them clung to it like a lifeline. That was, until Kyoya stepped in. Until Kyoya _stopped_ them, and gave them the (metaphorical, and maybe quite literal) slap to the face they needed, because instead of healing them, those fantasies only served to open more wounds. They denied the truth so vehemently that they created their own, and almost, _almost_ started to believe it.

Toes curling, she remembers the day it all went to Hell.

When she received the call that Kaoru was hurt. That he was in the hospital. That he was dying, and there wasn't much that could be done for him.

It passes in a blur. She vaguely recalls a Taxi, and shoving a bundle of notes at the startled driver before she bolts. The main reception was just a swirl of colours that were _too damn loud_ , but she manages to find the waiting room, and it definitely has something to do with the fact that Mori pulls her there, a guiding hand fixed around her upper arm.

It's there that her entire soul crumbles into dust.

Because Kaoru is sitting next to Kyoya and sobbing into him without restraight. His eyes are puffy, and he's choking on air, but he's present and entirely whole, and _he's not the one that's hurt._

The bespectacled boy shoots her a pleading look, and she takes Kaoru from him wordlessly, because Kyoya was allergic to emotions on a normal day, let alone when he was fighting back tears himself. He immediately excuses himself, and they see neither hair nor hide of him for an hour.

Tamaki disappears on a vending machine run, and returns with an armful of drinks and snacks, as well as a significantly more pale Kyoya in tow, the bespectacled boy's eyes all red-ringed and bloodshot.

Kaoru is too distraught to do anything but cry. He does so for far longer than she thinks is possible, and she holds him through it all.

Haruhi is the one that breaks the news.

The one that makes the correction that no-one dared to voice. When she does, she scrubs her face, and squares her shoulders, and looks the doctor dead in the eye. He had the decency to look ashamed. The twin's mother collapses into worse hysterics, and is inconsolable for hours.

Kaoru is almost comatose. Kyoya says something about shock, and a nurse brings over a blanket which they share. Kaoru doesn't let go of her the whole night.

Now, Hikaru lies six feet under. A neat, perfectly square stone adorns his resting place, and Haruhi thinks it's exactly the opposite of the messy, mischievous Hikaru that she knew. She hates going there, even now. It feels like an insult to Hikaru's memory, and that of the legacy of structured chaos he left behind.

Kaoru chokes back a sob, and she is pulled forcefully back into the present. Free arm slung over his face, he fights past the shaking of his shoulders. "Do you think he would be proud?"

Her thumbs traces soothing patterns over the back of his hand. This isn't the first time he's asked this question. She hopes it will be the last. "Of course he would."

She believes it wholeheartedly. There isn't any need to lie to him, and deep down, he knows it himself.

"I miss him." He admits, like it's something wrong. He retreats back on himself, as though he had just committed a great taboo, as though all those years spent hand in hand with his twin amounts to nothing now that Hikaru is nothing more than a soulless heap of ash.

"I know you do." She murmurs, soft, and light, and full of fondness.

"I want him back-" His voice breaks off with a loud, strangled gasp. Haruhi feels it reverberate through his body, and pushes closer, a comforting warmth that he could cling to. "I want him _back_ , Haruhi."

"He can't come back." Her voice is even, diplomatic, but not unkind. Practical, Tamaki called it. Blunt, Kyoya would say. She liked to think she was just honest. "He's dead, Kaoru. He can't come back."

He buries his face into her shoulder, and she strokes his hair, feather-light, the way he finds comforting. It's been years, she thinks, and time has dulled the pain. But for Kaoru, it has engulfed him. _Become_ him. Ever present, it is always ready to flare up, white hot and burning when the dreaded day approaches.

"It's not fair."

Life isn't fair. She knows this. Kaoru knows this too. Life isn't fair- it never has been.

It took a brother far too early. Not just a brother, but a son, a friend. It spirited away a boy, not a man. Only seventeen, just shy of his next birthday, full of energy, full of ideas and plans and hopes and dreams for the future, and it crushed him under the heel of its shoe and kicked him to the curb.

 _Life isn't fair._

But that sure as Hell isn't going to stop her making the most of it.

"No," She agrees, aloud. "It's not fair. It's really not." Kaoru sniffles, and it's pitiful and heart-breaking both at once. "It's not fair that his legacy is dying. Even if he's gone, that doesn't mean everything he stood for has to as well."

" _God_ ," He whispers, and it's raspy and hoarse and it doesn't sound like him at all. "Who are you and what have you done with Haruhi?"

"I'm still me." She confirms, and presses a kiss to his forehead. "I just want you to be _you_ again."

Even though his eyes are shining with tears, there's reverence swirling in those amber depths, and he's watching her with the same affection she reserved for him, and only him. "The carriage crashed. Everything changed, Haruhi. _Everything_."

"Fix it, then." Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders whether the simplicity of her words diminishes the significance of the task. It was hardly as though Kaoru could suddenly will himself to be fine. But even an attempt to do so would be a start, and that is all she wants. "Mend the carriage, and start your journey again. It doesn't have to be perfect, Kaoru, but you can't just sit in the pumpkin patch forever. Move forward. Get to the finish line- the one you dreamed of reaching together. Take him across there with you."

He struggles to articulate himself, and she worries that maybe she's stepped too far and crossed some invisible line that not even she has the right to do. But finally, after a sizeable silence, he manages a hushed plea. "Will you be there with me?"

"Every step of the way." She promises.

He wasn't quite healed, none of them were. But he was on the way, and maybe someday he'd reach the point where he could look back on his youth with a smile, and cherish the memories he was able to create.

* * *

 **A/N: I can barely write a word for Stalker, and yet can spit out 1.5k for this lil angsty one shot? My priorities are totally in order, it seems**

 **It's late and I'm tired, and I'm barely even sure this is coherent, but the idea wouldn't let me sleep, so heyo insomnia, I guess?**

 **Hope you enjoyed this, I** tried my best to keep them true to their original personalities, but I'm open to constructive criticism for any ways I could improve my work

Now imma take a fatass nap, peace out peeps


End file.
